With increasing public concern over the quality of the environment, a significant need has arisen for equipment which is capable of accurately and economically testing various environmental conditions. The present invention, while suitable for employment in any situation requiring automated chemical analysis equipment, is particularly useful for continuously and automatically monitoring the quantity of pollutant in a body of water, such as a lake, stream or municipal water supply.
Conventionally, if one wishes to measure the level of pollutant, the biological oxygen demand or some other parameter of a body of water, one would take a sample of the water and submit it to an appropriate quantitative chemical analysis. These chemical tests generally comprise a number of steps involving the mixing and reacting of a predetermined amount of the sample or reacted sample with specific quantities of various chemical reagents.
These tests are best carried out individually by relatively highly skilled personnel. Naturally, if one wishes to use a test to obtain data continuously or at frequent intervals and thus construct an accurate and complete picture of the state of water quality over a period of time, conventional manual testing is quite expensive.